


Please Leave a Message After the Tone

by marblepages



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 10:30:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18248024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marblepages/pseuds/marblepages
Summary: 5 times Bucky missed Steve's calls + 1 time Steve missed Bucky's





	Please Leave a Message After the Tone

**December 8, 2016**

**7:04 P.M. New Voicemail:**

_**Hey Buck. It's me. Need to lie low. Please call me back.** _

 

"So you got my message?" 

Bucky stands in the doorway, stunned to find Steve staring back at him. He hasn't stayed in a city longer than two days at the most, and he can't believe Steve found him. 

Steve interrupts the silence, " Can I come in for a minute? I'm freezing my balls off out here." 

His breaths paint the air a soft, puffy white. Bucky smirks. He knows Steve's not as cold as he's pretending to be. But he really doesn't have a jacket, and he spots an unconscious tremble underneath Steve's skin. 

"Damned stupid of you to come all this way without a jacket," Bucky says. 

With his foot, he pushes the door the rest of the way open. Steve brushes past him. 

For two years they've been on the fun, fugitives from every military and government organization on the planet. Two years since Bucky let Steve know him inside and out--from the way his pulse flutters when Steve traces his fingers down his spine to the way he likes his coffee bittersweet. Two years since Bucky figured out how to tell Steve how damn afraid he really is. 

All he knows is that he can't lose him again. The fissures on Bucky's heart remain permanent, and he'll never tell Steve how violent they made him. 

"So," Steve says. "The couch?" He points his finger at the piece of furniture in question and raises an eyebrow. 

Bucky doesn't know what to say, doesn't really know what Steve asks of him. All he can think of is how young Steve looks. Even now, even after all that they've been through, his face wears no marks of war or fatigue or grief.  _It must be beneath his skin_ , Bucky surmises.  _It can't be anywhere else._

Steve takes the silence as an affirmative response and sits down. Feeling self conscious by how effortless Steve makes himself comfortable, Bucky takes a quick look around the apartment. It's tidy enough, despite the level of grime beneath it. No matter how he tries to arrange the furniture or spruce it up with tulips, the flat betrays how deep in the slums they really are. The boarded up windows certainly don't help. Bucky maneuvers his body in front of the kitchen table to try and hide the sprawl of various guns overtaking it. Steve's eyes catch them anyway. They lift up and study Bucky with unspoken concern. 

"Okay?" Steve asks from the couch where he sprawls back, feet up. 

"Yeah. Interpol has been tracking me down. I don't want you caught in the crosshairs." 

"I'll be outta your hair soon enough," Steve says. 

Bucky swallows a groan of frustration. "That's not what I want."

"What do you want?" 

You. To live quietly. To wake up one day and not be afraid that we're never going to be together. 

Bucky says, "A cigarette." 

 

Steve nods, and closes his eyes. “I’ll be here.”

So as Steve falls asleep, Bucky pulls on his jacket and sneaks down to the corner store to buy a packet of cigarettes. When he comes back, Steve is snoring on the couch. Bucky pushes him over to get some space and lies down beside him. The heater doesn’t work well in the apartment, but Steve has always been a furnace. After a few minutes listening to Steve’s quiet snores, Bucky wraps his arms around Steve’s body. He feels his hands up Steve’s chest and ribs and doesn’t think about anything.

 

Steve wakes up to the sunlight. The guns are gone, and despite the apartment retaining its general appearance from before, Steve knows it’s empty.

“Fuck.” Steve mutters, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

When he’s fully cognizant, he stumbles up and over to a chair holding Bucky’s jacket. There’s  a note pinned to it.

_To keep you warm._

 

Steve puts on the jacket and leaves.

 

**April 22, 2017**

**11:34 A.M. New Voicemail:**

**_Hey Bucky, it’s me. Call me when you get the chance._ **

 

“Now is really not a good time,” Bucky says when Steve answers the phone.

“So why’d you call me back?”

_Because I know you’d panic if you didn’t hear my voice. I knew you’d assume the worst only because I always think the same about you. Because all we’ve been doing this past year is run circles around each other._

Bucky moves the phone between his ear and shoulder.

“I’m trying to defuse a bomb,” he says instead.

“What?!”

“Well, I didn’t know that it was a bomb!” Bucky replies, exasperated. He plucks a wire and the clock starts counting down faster. The whole thing is turning into a mess, really.

“I’ll call you back when I’m done.”

“Wait--”

Bucky hangs up and drops the phone beside him. He turns his full attention back to the device. The numbers on the timer are fading faster by the second, a teasing glimpse of digits before they transform into the next. Bucky sighs.

He really does hate bombs.

_Well,_ he thinks, holding up the tangle of wires. _Here goes nothing._

 

**August 3, 2017**

**6:03 P.M. New Voicemail: Hey Bucky, it’s me.**

**6:15 P.M. New Voicemail: Buck pick up the phone.**

**6:30 P.M. New Voicemail: Bucky you better not be dead or I swear to fucking Christ!**

 

A bullet shatters the glass window in front of him. Perfect. Bucky holds his arm in front of him as a barrier as he charges through it. The broken shards left on the metal frame scrape against his skin, but it’s no matter. The sudden freefall afterwards…

It’s a lot farther down than he expected.

A lot farther down.

His stomach hits the top of his mouth as his body tumbles like a rag doll in the wind.

_No turning back now._

Struggling, Bucky realignes his body, managing just in time to land on the tip of his toes. The weight of him cracks some of the clay roof tiles, and it’s either a miracle or testament of Indonesian architecture that he doesn’t crash right through.

People below scream as the bullets keep chasing him. One nearly pierces through his skull, saved by quick reflexes and his arm. Bucky keeps running.

He leaps off the building and onto the next. He pulls out his own gun and fires into the head of an agent climbing up the edge of the wall. The man tumbles back to the ground. It’s a minor success that Bucky briefly enjoys. The fact of the matter is, there’s far too many of them, and Bucky can see only a slim chance of escape.

Distracted by the three agents on his side, Bucky doesn’t see the fourth pull out a shotgun until it’s too late. At this distance, he knows the shot will kill him--even with the super serum. A crack splits the air, smaller and more precise than he expected from the size of the gun. But instead of being shot in two, the man in front of him collapses to the roof. Bucky lets out a breath of relief. In the momentary stillness, he examines the kill. Then the shield beside the body.

In his pocket his cell phone rings.

Bucky grins as he holds it up to his ear. Before he can respond, the voice says, “Keep running stupid.”

Bucky does, feeling lighter now knowing that on the building opposite Steve watches his back. Shot, thud, scream is all Bucky hears behind him. He reaches the edge of the building and leaps. No one pursues him. He waits a few minutes to see if Steve will follow. Nothing happens. He keeps running.

 

**September 3, 2017**

**2:07 A.M.**

**New Voicemail: Bucky, I’m coming up.**

 

“Do you have any idea,” Bucky says through the door, “what fucking time it is?”

“Not like you were asleep anyway,” Steve replies, voice muffled behind the wood and cars honking all around them. “Besides, not like you can ignore me now.”

“No,” Bucky agrees.

But he can jump through the window, the drop is low enough. He can climb up the fire escape to the roof. Bucky starts to mentally go through all the escape plans and weighs the odds of each one.

He pulls back the locks and swings the front door open instead.  

Steve holds up a bag that Bucky assumes is take out.

“I brought food from down the street.”

Bucky shifts from side to side. It’s a different apartment than before--in Hong Kong this time to be exact--a different situation, but Bucky is momentarily thrust back to the first time Steve made himself at home in the last apartment. It terrifies him how at ease Steve can make himself, how calm he is despite their constant taste of adrenaline. Meanwhile, Bucky can’t control his pulse. He wonders if Steve can hear his heart beating.

He watches Steve sort the take out boxes on the overturned bookshelf turned coffee table. Gradually, his breathing slows and matches Steve’s leisurely pace. It feels good to not run, and then he wonders:

“How do you always know where I am?”

Steve looks up then, chopsticks in hand, ready to dive into noodles. His expression is even, but there’s a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Coincidence.”

Bucky scoffs. “Liar.”

“Yeah.” Steve grins. He pulls Bucky onto the sofa and shoves a box of takeout into his hands. It’s not until he smells the food and hears his stomach growl does he realize how hungry he is.

“Steve?” Bucky asks.

Steve reaches over and takes his wrist. Such a small and simple gesture. It takes Bucky’s breath away.

“You don’t have to say anything, Buck.”

 

**October 16, 2017**

**7:09 P.M. New Voicemail: Hey Buck. Know that I love you.**

 

The barbershop is no longer a barbershop. In fact, it hasn’t been one in close to seventy years. It’s been everything, Bucky later finds out, from an ice cream shop to a deli to a candy store. But now it sits abandoned, and yet it’s the closest thing in the world that he can call a home.

Bucky remembers when he and Steve got their hair cut here. Sitting in the chair, looking at his cracked reflection in the broken mirror, he can think of lighter, dustier days when Steve sat where he was. Strands painted the floor in a puddle of gold. Bucky would crack jokes and slick back his own hair as he waited, maybe step outside for a minute or two to catch a smoke.

The building is dark, filled with shadows. New York continues on outside, a loud and monstrous sound. Bucky hates it. He hates how it just keeps moving, never stops. He feels like his world has stopped.

Steve’s death is all over the news. Shot at point blank on the courthouse steps.

He pulls out his phone. All those voicemails they left each other over the years. All the messages Steve left him. He’s saved them all. He holds the phone close to his ear and listens to Steve’s voice.

 

**February 3, 2018**

**9:14 Missed Call: Bucky Barnes**

**9:20 Missed Call: Bucky Barnes**

**New Voicemail: Fuck you, Rogers.**

 

Steve  isn’t surprised to find Bucky when he opens his apartment door already waiting for him. Neither of them say anything. He senses the anger before he can fully register it, taking a quick note of Bucky’s clenched fists. Bucky’s still wearing the suit from the funeral, his eyes are still red. Nick must not have explained anything on the car ride over, Steve reasons. He doesn’t know where to begin. Bucky starts for him.

“You fucking asshole!”

Then he punches him. It doesn’t hurt as much as Steve expected, but it stings. His heart breaks too. All the reasons why he had to fake his death are too complicated--or perhaps they are too simple. Either way, Steve knows they will be unsatisfactory for Bucky.

“I watched you die,” Bucky says through gritted teeth.

Because he can’t help it, Steve jokes, “Payback’s a bitch.”

Bucky tries to slug him again, but Steve catches his wrist. He looks straight at him and touches his skin like he did all those months before.

“No more games, Steve.” Bucky says. “I thought you were dead.”

“I’m sorry,”

“I gave a eulogy over your coffin!”

Steve’s throat clenches up remembering how difficult it was to give a eulogy over Bucky’s.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says again. “I never wanted to put you through that.”

Steve grips his wrist harder and moves closer. Bucky smells of Jack Daniels and carnations. He brushes his nose along Bucky’s collarbone lightly enough that it’s a ghost of a touch. Ghosts, Steve thinks, the both of us.

“I left you tulips,” Bucky chuckles as Steve kisses his throat.

“Good,” Steve says, “I fucking hate roses.”

He steps between Steve’s legs and presses his hands against his chest. He works Steve’s jacket with slow precision. It falls to the floor, then his tie, and gradually the buttons of his shirt become undone. Steve brushes his fingers against Bucky’s neck and into his hair, drawing their lips together with a lengthening hesitance that when they finally meet, he lets out an accidental groan.

Outside of the walls, the world is noise, but that’s fine because Bucky’s fingers are against his chest and he’s pushing him back on the bed, blinking up at him.


End file.
